Heart of the matter

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I had been invited to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening:

The purpose, I was told, was to 'help find an aneurysm' in the main blood vessel that supplies blood to the body.

What they were looking for was any swelling – which can be serious – but they couldn't find anything so I passed that test and we move on.

Yesterday I received an email from an old friend telling recipients that he is due to have open heart surgery before Christmas to repair an aneurysm.

I have known him since university. We met at a cheese and wine party (!) in our first week at Aberdeen in 1976 and have remained good friends ever since, although it’s a few years since I last saw him.

The irony is that I have always thought of him as much fitter than I have ever been.

He has never been overweight and has always looked after himself, so news of his impending operation adds fuel to my belief that, while it’s sensible to take precautions to lower the risks in later years, there is a Russian roulette aspect to health that limits what we can do.

Perhaps it’s hereditary or just bad luck, but some things are beyond our control.

My father, for example, was never overweight and enjoyed far more exercise as an adult than I ever have, yet he suffered heart problems from his early fifties and ended up having two heart by-pass operations and a heart transplant.

According to my mother - and this was news to me until yesterday - he also had aortic aneurysm surgery.

My grandfather died of angina in 1972 before heart by-passes were common procedure, so perhaps my father inherited some of his problems from his father.

The good news is that my friend’s issue has been identified - perhaps through a similar screening to the one I had last month - and is being dealt with.

I wish him all the very best.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

One of the most depressing aspects of the war on smokers this last five or six decades has resulted in an acceptance that anyone anywhere can get ill, disabled, or even die from illnesses that can affect anyone, but if smokers suffer from the same ailments then it's all their own fault because smokers, it seems, are not human.

When a human disease affects the non smoking, non drinking, fitness freak, it's a tragedy, but when a smoker, moderate drinker, or foodie, goes down with exactly the same kind of human disease, society's commentators generally say "serves 'em bloody well right!"

The war on smokers has not only created a two tier health and social system where people are segregated into health sinners and health saints, but also a two tier system when it comes to compassion for the sick who the national Health Service founder Aneurin Bevan said should never be blamed for getting ill.

He would be turning in his grave to see what has become of the noble idea of free healthcare for all without blame or judgement.